Hasta La Creative!

In news that will surely warm the cold, jaded heart of any copywriter, designer or other creative struggling to stand out at an independent agency, Havas Worldwide paid now-former CEO David Jones $13.5 million bucks last year.

In fact, he made 7 of those millions simply for stepping down to fulfill his “burning desire to be an entrepreneur“–or, as we call it in the blog world, “the possibility of making even more money.”

This morning our future colleages at AdWeek combed through the company’s annual report to reveal those important stats. This fact stood out to us:
“Jones received another $1.2 million compensation for a non-compete clause and his role as an advisor to the younger Bolloré”
So he received a significant sum for advising the man who replaced him. Jones was unavailable for comment, presumably because he was too busy laughing about the fate of the Publicis-Omnicom merger.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

According to AdAge, Nestle — the makers of confectionery crushes like those pictured above — has created an RFP for unnamed advertising agencies to change its sugary perception.

See, Nestle would like consumers to stop thinking of it as “a trusted chocolate company” and start thinking of it as a “recognized and trusted food and beverage, nutrition, health and wellness company.”

Semantics, really. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Anyone who’s tried Laphroaig, one of the few truly robust Scotches that’s also widely available, knows that it sparks passionate responses ranging from delight to disgust.

Now the distiller is parsing out those perspectives in all their oddly specific glory with a new campaign called Opinions Welcome.

In the video spot from U.K. agency White Label, we see real first impressions from tasters who aren’t sure what’s being poured out of the unlabeled green bottle. As a longtime Laphroaig fan, I can attest that every reaction is 100% accurate, even the skeptically negative ones like, “I think they let the cows in that one,” and, “You can smell the seagull’s armpits.”

Of course, those who appreciate the Scotch will also recognize the accuracy of more positive references like, “briny, smoky bacon flavor” and even “damp dog and tree bark.” Hey, it’s an acquired taste. 

On that note, the brand is also rolling out a series of print executions that highlight the rather unique ways people have of summarizing Laphroaig’s feisty flavor. Check them out below.

CREDITS

Agency: White Label UK 
Managing Director: Drew Shannon  
Creative Director: Greg Saunders 
Account Director: Emily Thoubboron 
Senior Account Manager: Chris Cassell 

Bud Light plans to take over a town for a weekend as part of its summer ad campaign, but it is trying to keep the location a secret, for now.

The effort — called “Whatever USA” — is the latest campaign for the “Perfect Beer for Whatever Happens” push that broke during the Super Bowl. Those ads featured hidden-camera style footage of a man who encountered celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger during a rollicking night out on the town.

This time, the Anheuser-Busch InBev-owned brand is inviting consumers to audition to visit the unspecified town for a weekend in August “filled with spontaneous fun and surprises around every corner,” according to a statement. The promotion is featured in a TV ad (above) that will debut tonight. The campaign is by BBDO, which also handled the Super Bowl campaign.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

This ploy from Russian telecom brand MTS by BBDO Moscow recalls the early days of internet porn and 24K baud rate dial-up modems. But since no one knows what that experience is like these days, MTS took it upon themselves to frustrate the heck out of people to tout its 4G service.

The brand teamed with Russian models Victoria Bonya, Alena Vodonaeva and Anna Sedokova and had them post photos to their Instagram accounts with these hastags: #sexy #oiled #myself #six #hot #naked #pumpedup #guys #red #latex #ass #withanimals #cat #bear #horse #experimenting #crazy #positions #wow #amazing #ohmygod.

Those of you who use Instagram are familiar with the loading symbol that occasionally appears when images don’t appear immediately. Well along with these hastags, the models posted images of this loading symbol tricking people into believing images might load when, in fact, they never did.

A few days after posting these images and hastags, the models posted ads for the brand’s 4G services.

Did the campaign work? According to the case study — complete with ejaculating whipped cream shot — video, yes. More than 3 million were touched by the campaign. Via. No word on how many people touched themselves during or after the campaign.

Depois de ter apresentado o iCloud Drive, que funciona como uma versão do Dropbox da Apple, a segunda parte da conferência WWDC mostrou como a empresa tem aproveitado detalhes de usabilidade de outros aplicativos para melhorar os seus próprios na nova versão do seu sistema operacional mobile, o iOS 8.

Nos emails do iOS 8, por exemplo, uma função conhecida do app Mailbox foi implementada – basta deslizar o email para a esquerda para ver funções extras, como apagar a mensagem.

O aplicativo nativo de mensagens também recebeu melhorias, como o uso de pequenas gravações de voz e de troca de vídeos e fotos, fazendo dele uma pequena versão do WhatsApp, com direito a formação de grupos e compartilhamento de localização dos usuários.

A função QuickType também estreia com o intuito de ajudar a digitar com mais facilidade. O sistema aprende as palavras que você mais usa, além de reconhecer o contexto, oferecendo a possibilidade de responder a perguntas com apenas um toque na tela. Basicamente um SwiftKey.

Outra novidade do novo iOS 8 é ferramenta Family Sharing. Com ela, é possível ter lembretes compartilhados com os membros da sua família, em um paralelo digital dos recadinhos na geladeira. Para os pais que precisam controlar a compra de aplicativos dos pequenos, a Family Sharing faz com que eles precisem pedir permissão para baixar um app – a fatura do cartão de acaba de ficar mais segura!

Além das melhorias ‘surrupiadas’ de outros apps de sucesso, a Apple também apresentou a possibilidade de incorporar extensões nos aparelhos móveis, o que permitirá personalizar, por exemplo, o teclado utilizado nos aparelhos. Finalmente será possível ter um teclado Swype não só em um app, mas em todo o sistema de um iPhone ou de um iPad. As extensões também poderão ser incluídas no Safari, trazendo funcionalidades que podem ser acessadas com poucos toques.

No segmento da apresentação voltado para desenvolvedores, a grande estrela foi o lançamento do Swift, nova linguagem de programação da Apple com base em Objective-C, que promete ser mais fácil de codificar, mais veloz e mais eficiente.

Os desenvolvedores também foram apresentados ao HomeKit, que oferecerá acesso seguro para que os aparelhos da Apple possam controlar objetos da casa, como trancas, luzes, câmeras, portas, termostatos, entre outros, em um processo de automação das residências.

No ramo dos aplicativos, também passarão a existir ‘pacotes’ de aplicativos na App Store, além de permitir que alguns deles possam ganhar um espacinho próprio no centro de notificações do aparelho, com um widget associado ao aplicativo.

O iOS 8 já está disponível, em beta, para os desenvolvedores interessados em conhecer o sistema operacional. A versão final deverá ser liberada dentro de algumas semanas.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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